The number of violent deaths in the Netherlands fell by over 25% last year to 119, the national statistics office CBS said on Thursday.

Last year’s figure, which includes both murder and manslaughter, is down 39 on 2017, reducing the total number of violent deaths by half since the beginning of the century, the CBS said.

The drop was largely accounted for by a sharp reduction in manslaughter or murder cases involving men – down from 112 to 76. Three-quarters of the 43 women who died were killed by a partner or ex-partner while just one third of the male victims were killed by someone they knew.

Nineteen of last year’s victims did not live in the Netherlands, the CBS said and people with roots outside the Netherlands accounted for a large proportion of the total number of murders.

Amsterdam remained the murder capital of the Netherlands with 14 deaths, followed by Rotterdam with 12 and The Hague with 10.

Despite fears that the Netherlands is becoming a ‘narco-state’ figures released by Moordatlas researchers at the end of last year showed that just 16 of the murders were gang-related.